


togetherness

by andnowforyaya



Series: a collection of hearts [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Holidays, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: After six years, you'd think he'd get over whatever it was about Baba that made him blush and stammer and sigh dreamily as he looked out the window lost in thought sometimes when Yangyang had the day off from school and Baba didn't, but no. Ten still acted like Baba was the coolest thing since people landed on the moon.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Series: a collection of hearts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670158
Comments: 110
Kudos: 956
Collections: In Every Lifetime: A KunTen Fan Week





	togetherness

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a collection of hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595041) by [andnowforyaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya). 



> Happy holidays <3  
> #

Yangyang sat in the chair with his hands under his thighs, feet swinging above the ground as he waited for Ten and for Renjun’s parents to come out of the Principal’s office. They had been in there now for twenty minutes while Yangyang stewed, chewing on his bottom lip where the blood had started crusting over. The receptionist had given him a small ice pack to hold over his chin where a bruise had formed but otherwise she ignored the sad figure he made in his seat. 

The collar of the uniform shirt Yangyang was wearing scratched against his throat, so he struggled to loosen the top button with one hand. A couple of speckles of blood had dried about halfway down his chest, staining the light blue fabric there with dark brown. Beyond the solid door, Yangyang strained to hear what the adults in the room were saying, but the words were muffled and Yangyang couldn’t make them out. 

Next to Yangyang sat Renjun. He had an ice pack over his eye and kept sneaking glances at Yangyang every once in a while and then scowling at him when they accidentally made eye contact. They’d been told not to speak unless it was to apologize to each other, so of course they stayed quiet. 

When Yangyang thought he might just die from neglect and thirst if Ten didn’t come back out in the next second, the door swung open. Yangyang looked up hopefully, only to see Ten wiping a tissue under his eyes and shaking Principal Garcia’s hand. “I understand,” Ten was saying softly. “We’ll talk to him at home about this, too.” Ten turned to Renjun’s parents also, his smile hesitant but genuine. “I’m really sorry about this, Mr. and Mrs. Huang.” 

“We’re sure Renjun played a part in this mess,” Mr. Huang said. He shook Ten’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder congenially, but Ten still winced. “Boys will be boys, won’t they?”

“Well,” Ten said, trailing off in uncertainty. “I kind of hope not.”

Finally, _finally_ , Ten turned to Yangyang. He lowered himself slowly to a squat in front of Yangyang’s chair so that he could be at eye level with him and said, “When we get back, you are in trouble, little man.”

Yangyang swallowed around the marble in his throat and nodded, taking Ten’s hand when he offered it. 

.

Baba wouldn’t be back until dinner time. It was finals season at the university, so Yangyang knew that meant Baba would be grading lots of papers and consoling a lot of students during his open office hours that their final grades could be improved by taking on extra credit projects. Yangyang already knew that he did not want to be a professor when he grew up. Baba was always complaining about something called “eye strain” and his students didn’t seem all that smart, even though there were a few that he liked and who consistently did well in class. But a life full of papers and lessons? No thank you. 

Ten’s job at the cafe seemed much more his speed — Yangyang had even worked the register once with Mark! Well, he’d been behind the counter and taken orders as Mark put them into the tablet. However, Yangyang was also not very interested in coffee. You probably had to like coffee at least a little bit in order to work at or own a cafe, right? 

Yangyang stepped out of his sneakers and skipped into the living room, where he slid onto the couch and turned on the television. He wanted to put on some racing videos. That was definitely something he was interested in; he loved the speed and thrill, the bright colors, everything! As soon as he clicked the power button of the remote, though, it was being taken out of his hands by a frowning Ten.

“Nuh uh,” Ten said, shaking his head and crossing his arms. “You have some explaining to do.”

“Can’t it wait until Baba gets home? He’ll want to hear the story too and, really, it’s just a better use of everyone’s time if I only have to tell the story once.”

“You _punched_ Renjun in the face,” Ten said. “You’re _bleeding_.”

“He deserved it,” Yangyang said stubbornly, crossing his arms also. He sat squished all the way into the cushions of the couch so that it would take a lot of effort to wedge him back out. “He was making fun of Jisung!”

“No one deserves to be hit,” Ten said. He sat down next to Yangyang and put the remote back onto the coffee table, out of reach. “Yangyang, look at me.”

Yangyang jut out his bottom lip and looked at Ten. The sweater he was wearing was one of Baba’s, Yangyang thought, and a little big on him. His glasses were askew on his face. He’d probably come straight from home to meet the Principal after lunch. A tiny serving of guilt wiggled its way into Yangyang’s stomach, and it made his eyes hot. He didn’t like making Ten’s life difficult, or making Ten sad, and right now he looked sad.

“Let me see your lip. Is it okay?”

Yangyang let Ten cup his face gently and turn it this way and that way in the yellow light of the living room. He hissed and jerked his chin out of Ten’s hold when Ten brushed his thumb over the bruise and split. “Ow!”

“The nurse already put some first aid ointment on it, right?”

“Yeah,” Yangyang mumbled. “That stuff tasted funny.”

“You’re not supposed to _eat_ it.” Ten sighed.

“It’s on my lips! It just happens!” 

“We’ll put some more on later,” Ten said. He frowned and leaned in closer, squinting, Yangyang’s chin still in his fingers. “It might take a while to heal, baby.”

Yangyang pouted and poked a finger at his lip, fascinated by the swelling and the tingling of pain that accompanied his prodding. 

“Does it hurt anywhere else?”

Yangyang shook his head. His lower lip was starting to wobble as the events of the day caught up to him. He’d fought with Renjun. They’d gone to the nurse. Principal Garcia had given them a half-day suspension and called their guardians to come pick them up. Ten looked tired. Yangyang was overcome with such emotion that his smaller frame couldn’t contain, and then Ten said:

“No screens for a week unless it’s for school. You’re grounded.”

The injustice of it all made Yangyang swell with indignation. “But—“

“Don’t try me,” Ten said swiftly, and the indignation immediately quelled within him. Yangyang ducked his eyes and crossed his legs on the cushions, feeling sorry for himself and picking at the threads coming loose at the bottom hem of his school slacks. “Now, tell me what Renjun said about Jisung. It must have upset you a lot for you to react that way.”

“It did,” Yangyang mumbled. He puffed out his cheeks and felt tears filling his eyes. He hated being in trouble. And it was unfair! Renjun probably wasn’t getting the same treatment at home. “Renjun is a meanie. He was making fun of Jisung's shoes. Because there’s a hole in the toe. Jisung felt bad but he didn’t want to say anything, so I said something, and then Renjun said Jisung didn’t belong at the school because his parents can’t afford new clothes and then Jisung cried so I punched Renjun in his stupid face. And then he hit me back.” Yangyang pointed at his lip as evidence. “It wasn’t just me!”

Ten sighed again. He took his glasses off and held them by the frame, pinched between his fingers as he dragged his palms over his face. The sleeves of the sweater he was wearing dripped down with the motion, revealing skin covered in art and ink. Yangyang had been there for one of the earlier tattoos and held Ten’s hand as the artist moved the needle over his skin. Sometimes, Ten let him color in between the lines -- with washable marker, of course. 

“Yangyang,” Ten said, “What Renjun said wasn’t very nice, but what you did wasn’t very nice, either.”

“I know,” Yangyang said. “But Jisung was _crying_ .” It wasn’t like Yangyang went around punching other students all the time. It’s just that Jisung was his friend and important to him, and he’d do anything for Jisung, including get in trouble with Principal Garcia and Ten and not be able to watch his racing videos for a week. “I had to do _something_.”

“I get that you wanted to stand up for Jisung, and I’m glad you did. I’m proud of you for that part. But even if you’re really mad at someone, maybe even _especially_ if you’re really mad at them, you shouldn’t hit them. You shouldn’t resort to violence.”

“But what else could I have done?” Yangyang asked, puzzled. “What would you have done?”

Ten sank back into the cushions in the same way Yangyang had. He crossed his arms in front of his stomach and pushed his glasses back onto his face. He was thinking. Yangyang liked that about Ten -- that he paused and took his time when he was answering one of his questions and not just answering for the sake of answering. It made Yangyang feel like Ten trusted him with his thoughts, and Yangyang was just nine! He could tell that Ten was really trying to put himself in Yangyang’s shoes, and so Yangyang waited. 

“It’s hard, because I know Jisung is a really good friend of yours,” Ten began slowly as Yangyang listened with rapt attention. “But I think, something that I would have appreciated if I were Jisung is if you’d just helped me walk away from it. Bullies need lessons on how to treat people but you don’t have to be the person to teach them.” He paused. “Hm, or if you _have_ to confront Renjun, instead of using your fists, use your words? I bet he was trying to make his friends laugh.” Ten looked to Yangyang for confirmation, and Yangyang nodded. “Maybe if you’d said, “Why did you say that? It’s not funny at all,” would be enough to embarrass him, and he’d leave you both alone.”

Yangyang thought about it. He could try that. And then if that didn’t work, he could at least tell Ten he tried it without his fists and they could think of something else. “If I agree not to punch Renjun anymore, can I be ungrounded?”

“Oh no,” Ten said. “You’re still very grounded. But I’ll tell your Baba we had this talk so he doesn’t ground you even more.”

.

There was nothing to do. There was nothing to do! Yangyang couldn't imagine having to suffer through seven days of being grounded like this. Since he couldn't borrow Ten's iPad to watch videos or play games, nor could he even turn on the television, he'd changed into a t-shirt and shorts, finished his homework, found a couple of old issues of comics stuffed under his bed in his room, and made a fortress from blankets and pillows for himself in the corner of the living room. He holed himself up in there with the comics and read, and when that got boring, he lifted one of Ten's unfinished sketch books from the bookcase beside the television and went back into his fortress to doodle his dream cars in the blank pages near the back of the book.

He wasn't a very good artist, and besides that, he didn't have the best attention span, so halfway through drawing one car in lime green crayon, he started to flip through Ten's sketches to pass the time. He could hear Ten humming to himself in the kitchen as he made himself some jasmine tea.

"I'll just be working out here, baby," Ten said softly. Yangyang peeked his head out from under the flap he'd created in his blanket fortress and pouted at Ten, who was sitting comfortably on the couch and propped up against the arm, his knees drawn to his chest. "You do you."

"I want to watch TV," Yangyang tried.

"No can do." Ten shook his head.

"This house is run by monsters." Yangyang ducked back into his fortress and flipped through Ten's sketches to cool the feeling of injustice starting to burn through his veins again. He just wanted to catch up on Super Car! Then he thought a little more about what he said and felt his stomach start to turn. He didn't really mean he thought Ten was a monster. He peeked his head out again and huffed, "Sorry I said that. You're not a monster," and retreated back inside where it was starting to get stuffy and warm.

"I forgive you," Ten said. He laughed quietly to himself.

Ten was a good artist, even though he always said he wasn't. He drew flowers and skeletons really well, like _really_ well, the way Yangyang wanted to be able to draw them. The petals on the flowers he drew actually seemed soft and tender and delicate even though it was all just on paper. Sometimes the skeletons he drew were a bit goofy looking, like cartoons, but sometimes they looked like skeletons that would pop up out of the dirt in a scary movie and come after you. Yangyang didn't like to look too closely at those drawings, but they were cool all the same.

There were some sketches in the book of Yangyang, too. Yangyang at the kitchen table playing with Kun's phone, Yangyang on the couch, Yangyang in his soccer uniform with a big smile on his face. The drawings of Baba were all of Baba sleeping or grading papers. Yangyang giggled when he saw Ten had drawn Baba sleeping with drool coming out of the corner of his mouth a little bit, and written "old man" with a squiggly arrow pointing at him beside his cheek.

Then he flipped to a page that made him pause. There were no flowers or skeletons or Yangyang's or Baba's on the page. Instead, the paper was filled with sketches of rings. Some of the rings were very simple, like the thicker band with a thinner band running through the center, or the two bands connected by a couple of stones. Others had scribbles of words or ideas next to them: _hammered metal texture, rustic, engraved, onyx?_

When Yangyang flipped to the next page, he realized that it had been torn out. He ran his finger down the rough edge of the paper. It really was getting stuffy in here. Sweat was gathering at his temples and at the collar of his shirt. He crawled out from under the blankets, the sketchbook tucked under his arm.

"Ten Ge?" he asked.

Ten, who was still sitting on the couch, his glasses low on the bridge of his nose as he read something on the screen of his iPad in his lap, looked up with a slow smile. "Yes?"

"What's this?"

Yangyang climbed up on the couch next to him and squashed himself against Ten's side. He waited for Ten to move his iPad to the coffee table before putting the sketchbook in Ten's lap and flipping it open to the page in question. Yangyang pointed at one of the rings as Ten's face turned the color of a ripe, juicy tomato.

"It's, uh, it's. It's." The words didn’t come.

Yangyang narrowed his eyes at Ten and wriggled so that he could face him properly. "You're all red," he said, pointing out the obvious.

Ten swallowed with the same look on his face as Yangyang’s when he’d get caught sneaking chocolate before dinner. "I'm not," he said.

"You are!" Yangyang laughed a little gleefully and poked at Ten’s stomach. "Why are you all red?"

“Where’d you find this, anyway?” Ten asked, seemingly recovering. He closed the sketchbook despite Yangyang’s protests. “It’s just a--”

“Ring!” Yangyang interjected. “Are you designing jewelry, now?”

“Don’t tell your Baba, okay?” Ten begged.

“Why not?”

Ten ducked in closer to him, until their foreheads were touching. “It’s a secret,” Ten said, and Yangyang giggled because Ten looked cross-eyed. “It’s a very important secret.”

Yangyang loved secrets. A huge smile overtook his face. “I’m gonna tell Baba,” he said.

“Yang--”

“I’m just kidding,” Yangyang teased. The immediate shock in Ten’s eyes thrilled him. “The look on your face! It must be very important,” Yangyang continued, thinking through why Ten would want to keep such a thing hidden from his Baba. “It’s a surprise? You’re going to surprise Baba with a present? It _is_ close to Baba’s birthday…”

“Baby,” Ten sighed. “You are too smart sometimes.”

Yangyang shrieked in glee and threw his arms around Ten’s neck. “Baba’s going to love it,” Yangyang said.

At that moment, the door knob in the front door jiggled, and Baba walked in. “Going to love what?” he asked, his voice carrying from the entrance through to the living room.

Ten brought his finger to his lips and waggled his eyebrows at Yangyang, his eyes glittering behind the lens of his glasses. Yangyang planted a wet kiss on Ten’s cheek before rolling off the couch to greet his father with his arms flung wide open.

“Is it that I’m going to find my son has completed all his homework and has already cleaned his room? Is that what I’m going to love?” Baba groaned as he bent down to scoop Yangyang up into his arms. Yangyang knew he was getting big, but sometimes he thought Baba would exaggerate his grunting and groaning to make a show of it.

“Welcome home!” Yangyang greeted excitedly. “I did my homework already! I finished it, no problem!”

“Already? You’re on top of things today, aren’t you?” Baba frowned when he noticed the cut on Yangyang’s lip but didn’t say anything about it, kissing him on his forehead instead before putting him down. 

Yangyang watched as Ten padded up to Baba and took the bags Yangyang hadn’t even noticed from his hands and kissed him on the lips. Baba closed his eyes when their lips touched. He was smiling as Ten pulled away and took the bags into the kitchen. Yangyang followed behind his father closely while he took his shoes off and shrugged his jacket from his shoulders, hanging it on a hook by the door. They went into the kitchen together, and Yangyang worried at his bottom lip, wondering when Baba was going to talk to him about what happened today at school.

“Is this the khao soi from Pig and Khao?” Ten asked from the kitchen counter where he was taking out plastic and paper containers full of delicious, spicy-smelling food.

“It sure is,” Baba said.

“I love you.” Ten kissed him again, a quick and natural thing. Like the way Baba touched Ten’s hip lightly as he passed behind him, the way they curved and gravitated toward each other like one was the Earth and the other was the Moon. Yangyang had learned about the solar system in science class this week.

“You love the khao soi,” Baba joked.

“I can love more than two things at once,” Ten said, laughing lightly. He turned to Yangyang and said, “Baby, can you set the table for us?”

Yangyang nodded, happy to help and show that he had learned from today at school and didn’t deserve to be grounded anymore. At least not for seven days. He used the stepladder to carefully bring down three bowls from the cabinets as Baba secretly supervised. While Yangyang scurried back and forth between the kitchen and the table in the corner of the living room, he noticed Baba and Ten talking to each other quietly, but didn’t have the attention span to eavesdrop.

“I’m done!” Yangyang called out when he’d put out the cloth napkins beside the bowls.

The conversation in the kitchen stopped, and a moment later, Baba and Ten came out with the dishes, which they’d transferred into nicer, larger bowls for sharing. Yangyang smelled the familiar curry-based noodle soup that Ten loved from the restaurant they only went to a couple times a year because the crowds were so noisy and squashed together that they made it hard for Ten to eat anything at all. Baba had also ordered a rice dish, a side of fragrant vegetables, and a small order of fried lumpiang. Yangyang sat in his seat eagerly, his stomach rumbling for the first time that evening.

“I’m so hungry!” he whined.

“We’re in luck, because Baba brought us a feast,” Ten said, putting down the first bowl. Baba arranged all the shared bowls and platters so they were in the center of the table and within easy reach of everyone’s forks and spoons. Yangyang loved when they ordered dinner from a restaurant and ate it like this at home. Ten was a lot more comfortable here, and he looked at Baba every once in a while like Baba had put the stars in the sky just for him. After six years, you'd think he'd get over whatever it was about Baba that made him blush and stammer and sigh dreamily as he looked out the window lost in thought sometimes when Yangyang had the day off from school and Baba didn't, but no. Ten still acted like Baba was the coolest thing since people landed on the moon.

Not that Yangyang didn't think Baba was cool, too. He loved his father. Baba always checked over his homework and explained things when they were too confusing to him; he let Yangyang stay up on the weekends -- but not too late -- and watched old episodes of Top Gear with him so he could learn about cars and stuff. He came to all of Yangyang's soccer games and tucked him in every night and told him he loved him, and even though Yangyang knew he was supposed to think that was kind of cheesy, he still loved hearing it. Sometimes, when they weren't having takeout, Yangyang would cook dinner with Baba, helping him chop the vegetables or stir the pot. Those were his favorite moments, because it was just him and Baba in the kitchen and Baba's hands guiding him, showing him what to do.

Yangyang sank down into his seat, the curry soup much too hot for him to eat without burning his tongue. The cut on his mouth was throbbing.

"Still too hot?" Baba asked. He reached over the table and stirred the soup in front of Yangyang a couple of times. "Have some lumpiang, first." Yangyang grabbed one of the fried rolls and ate it dejectedly, and Baba sighed. "Does it hurt?"

Yangyang touched his bottom lip with an oily finger and felt how it was slick. The tip of his finger came away red. "Ah! I'm bleeding!"

"You're okay," Baba said calmly. He put his silverware down and got up to kneel beside Yangyang in his chair. "Oh, there's a bit of blood. C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up."

"I'm bleeding..." Yangyang whined as he slid off the chair, holding back a shaky sniffle. It didn't really hurt, but it shocked him. He'd almost forgotten about his fight with Renjun until then; he wondered if Baba would still cook with him, after today's events.

"It's on your lip, so it might keep doing that," Baba told him on the way to the bathroom. "We'll keep an eye on it, and you'll need to be careful."

"Ten Ge said that, too," Yangyang mumbled. In the bathroom, Baba sat him on the lid of the toilet and took the first aid kit out from under the sink. He could hear Ten moving around the bowls and plates in the kitchen.

"What else did Ten say?" Baba asked him. "I heard you talked about what happened at school with him already?"

"You know about what happened?" Yangyang asked in a tiny voice. Baba was taking out the rubbing alcohol and soaking a ball of cotton in his hand with it. Yangyang steeled himself for the sting.

"Principal Garcia called me first," Baba said just as quietly, so that their voices wouldn't carry from the bathroom. It was their own private conversation. "He called Ten when I told him I couldn't get away in the next hour...I'm really sorry about that, baby. We were short staffed today."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we didn't have enough people to cover the class I was leading. Lots of people were out sick or on vacation today, so I couldn't really leave immediately, and I didn't want you to have to wait."

"I'm glad Ten Ge was there," Yangyang said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You would have been really mad at me. I don't like it when you're mad at me."

Baba didn't say anything for a while as he cleaned Yangyang's cut and carefully applied ointment to it with a Q-tip. "Don't mess with it, okay?" he said when he was finished.

"Are you mad at me?" Yangyang asked.

"I was never mad at you," Baba said, shaking his head. "But I was disappointed by the choices I heard you'd made. I know you and Ten had a talk and that you know what you did wrong, and what you'll try next time, if there's a next time...And I think that's good enough for me."

Yangyang threw himself off the toilet and into his father's arms. Baba caught him with a surprised 'oomf!', falling back onto his rear. "I'm sorry I hit Renjun at school,” Yangyang blubbered. “I'm sorry I hurt him. I didn't like it. I don't know why I did it."

"Sometimes our emotions get the best of us," Baba said, rubbing Yangyang's back. "But we just have to learn from our past mistakes, baby."

Yangyang held onto his father tightly as Baba struggled to stand with his full weight latched around his neck.

At the door to the bathroom, Ten was waiting. He reached out when they got closer to him and brushed his fingers through Yangyang's slightly matted hair. "How about I make you a smoothie, hm?" he asked. "With ice cream. Just this once."

"Do we have red bean?" Yangyang asked wetly, his voice muffled by Baba's shoulder.

.

For Yangyang, the early morning went by in a blur. He vaguely remembered climbing out of bed (the bed was no longer car-shaped; he’d graduated to a small twin-sized loft bed in the third grade and never looked back, and he loved his racetrack-covered sheets) and spooning rice into his mouth for breakfast, followed by lethargically brushing his teeth in the bathroom with Ten diligently shaving beside him, looking just as sleepy. The cut on Yangyang’s lip had already healed a bit, but it still hurt when he thought about it.

Even though Yangyang was perfectly capable of dressing himself, he still allowed Ten to corral him back into his room and button up his uniform shirt for him, and he hugged Ten around his waist when Ten ducked down to drop a kiss to the top of Yangyang’s head before saying goodbye.

Baba was soaking the dirty dishes from breakfast in the sink, the running water drowning out whatever it was that Ten was saying to his Baba, lips close to his ear, his cheek. They shared their goodbyes in the kitchen and Baba stared at the space where Ten had just been standing for a moment longer after he’d gone, like he could still see the shape of him. Yangyang looked for his book bag and made sure he had everything he needed in it (notebooks, markers, three toy cars, his lunchbox, an apple juice, his lucky key chain with the moon on it that Baba gave to him) while Baba dried his hands off and went into the bathroom to finish getting ready for work, also. 

On the way to school, they went through the park, which Yangyang always loved, because the pigeons would wander around with their heads bobbing and their eyes dull, and Yangyang took great pleasure in spooking them. The morning air smelled like mint because it was so cold that you couldn’t smell anything else when you inhaled, not the butter and coffee from the breakfast cart near the fountain nor the smoke from the cigarettes two people were smoking on a bench they passed. That was good, because Yangyang hated the smell of cigarette smoke. He looked up at the sky and imagined the clouds were the puffs of his breaths that had travelled up into the stratosphere. When he looked back down at the sidewalk, a pigeon was staring back up at him.

“Boo!” he yelled, and cackled when the bird took off with a hoot and flap of its wings.

“Yang…”

Baba didn’t stop him from chasing the birds around. Some mornings he would, and other mornings, he didn’t really care, his mind elsewhere. Yangyang was in the middle of stalking a particularly hefty-looking bird when Baba cleared his throat and asked, “Yangyang, how would you like it if Ten became a part of our family?”

Yangyang’s foot fell through the concrete and he stumbled, catching himself before he could tumble to the ground. He paused in his bird hunting and peered up at his father. “Like, what do you mean?” 

He knew what Baba meant -- it was apparent in all the ways Baba looked at Ten when he thought Ten wasn’t looking back. The way he held the door for him when they went out _anywhere_ , even if it was just to the convenience store down the block. The way he brushed Ten’s hair out of his face for him when it got in the way while Ten was drawing. As far as Yangyang was concerned, Ten Ge was already a part of their family, and Baba and Ten Ge were already together in every way that counted, except there was one thing they hadn’t done yet that would make their togetherness real before “the eyes of the law,” whatever that meant (Yangyang heard the phrase on a show he wasn’t supposed to be watching, once): they hadn’t gotten married.

So Yangyang knew what Baba meant, but Yangyang also loved to see his generally calm, poised father sputter, just like how the pigeons would puff up their feathers when he feinted at them in the park, and a thought came to him, swift and mischievous.

“Baba, are you gonna adopt Ten Ge as my brother finally? I think that’s a great idea! Does that mean Auntie Tern will become my sister?”

Baba’s face turned pink like that time they went to the beach and he forgot to put sunscreen on his cheeks. Ten made fun of him the whole ride home but still tenderly rubbed soothing aloe gel on Baba’s skin when Baba pouted at him. “B-brother? Oh, Xiao Yang, no, he’s -- not as a brother, uh…”

“I’ve always wanted a brother,” Yangyang added quickly, grinning widely as he kept pace with his father, who had slowed their walk to a snail’s crawl as his face took on a darker shade of red. “But I thought he’d be younger…What about Mark, can we adopt Mark instead?”

“Mark? Who’s -- what’s Mark got to do with this?”

“Baba,” Yangyang drawled, “You know Mark Ge.”

“We’re not adopting Mark,” Baba said in the same tone of voice he’d used when Yangyang tried to convince Baba they needed a pet boa constrictor (Ten had been on Yangyang’s side in that one).

“You’re right,” Yangyang said, “you can’t raise three kids on your own.”

“You -- you’re--”

Yangyang cracked a smile and laughed at his father’s stuttering. 

“You are too clever,” Baba gasped, finally catching on and grabbing Yangyang around the waist to scoop him up and swing him around with a growl. “You’re spending too much time with Ten!”

“Baba, stop!” Yangyang shrieked as Baba spun him around again before placing him back onto the ground, dizzy and giggling. 

Baba laughed as Yangyang punched his stomach lightly with his fist, catching his hand and bringing him in for a hug. “But seriously, Xiao Yang,” Baba said. “I want to ask him to marry me. I want to get him the perfect ring and I want to ask him to marry me.” The pressure dropped around the two of them huddled close in the park. Yangyang looked up from his father’s belly and saw how he pressed his lips together in a line that meant he was worried, or, as Ten sometimes put it, ‘overthinking yourself gray.’ “Do you think he’ll say yes?”

Yangyang thought of the drawings he’d uncovered in Ten’s sketchbook and grinned slyly. “I think so, Baba.”

.

Yangyang had never really thought about it before, but apparently in some states, boys couldn’t get married to boys. This was what he and Evan got into a screaming match about at recess that afternoon on the rubber basketball court, their classmates circled up around them.

“They can too get married!” 

“They can’t! My mom says boys can’t marry boys in all fifty states, so they shouldn’t be able to marry in any of them. It’s wrong!”

“You’re wrong,” Yangyang shouted. His blood felt like the Coke from the science experiment they did in class the other week, a tiny tab of Mentos making the soda explode out of a bottle. Their classmates just edged closer and closer, the ring of bodies tightening around them, and it made Yangyang want to scream. “You’re just wrong, and dumb. My uncles Sicheng and Yuta got married!”

“It’s not the same as when my mom and dad got married,” Evan said. He grinned smugly and crossed his arms, like what he’d said was something profound. Yangyang marched up to him and jabbed his finger into Evan’s chest, making the boy blink and step back in surprise.

“You don’t know anything,” Yangyang said, breathing in deep and trying to keep his promise to Ten, and to his Baba. He thought about the stickers in Ten’s coffee shop. The rainbow ones and the hearts and all the nice people he got to give them to, whenever he was there after school or in the summer. He thought about his Uncle Doyoung, who talked a lot about “community” and “rights” and things like that. He liked listening to Uncle Doyoung speak because he said everything he said with passion and conviction, and certain phrases sometimes stuck with him. “Love is love,” Yangyang said, pressing his finger into Evan’s chest again. “And I feel sad for you if you don’t get that.”

Their classmates collectively gasped around them, and Yangyang felt like maybe _he’d_ said something really smart. And then Evan shoved him to the ground. 

Yangyang cried out when his butt hit the pavement hard, and he closed his eyes when sensed Evan’s shadow moving above him, but nothing came.

“Back off,” someone said, their voice familiar. Yangyang opened his eyes and saw Renjun’s back before him. He was shielding him from Evan. When Evan just looked at Renjun with disbelief in his expression, Renjun faked lunging at him and Evan’s eyes went wide as he stumbled back, into the crowd of classmates who were quickly dispersing.

“Whatever,” Evan muttered to himself, stalking off. 

The crowd thinned as Jisung pulled Yangyang up to his feet.

Yangyang swiveled toward his friend. “Where were you!?” He’d been sharing the news that Baba wanted to marry Ten with Jisung when Evan approached and picked a fight out of nowhere, having overheard them. When he turned around again, Jisung was gone.

“Going to get him,” Jisung said, pointing at Renjun.

“Why?” Yangyang glared at the other boy, who scowled at him.

“Because he’s the only one who’d stand up to Evan like that,” Jisung explained. “Plus, we made up this morning. He’s sorry about the shoes. You were a little late so you weren’t there.”

“Thanks,” Yangyang bit out, angry that he had to be saved at all. “I could have handled Evan myself, you know.”

“I know,” Renjun said. “But Evan made fun of me when my uncles got married, too. He’s an asshole.”

Jisung gasped shrilly. “Renjun! You can’t say that!”

“I can, too,” Renjun said, “because it’s true! He is one.”

Yangyang felt the laughter bubble up to his mouth and explode out of him, just like the soda in that experiment. He couldn’t contain it, and fell to the ground again, laughing still. Renjun smiled hesitantly and sat down across from him, his legs crossed, and beside him, Jisung did the same.

“So,” Renjun said. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Let’s be friends?”

.

Because he had almost a month and a half off between the end of one semester and the beginning of another, Baba would usually spend most of the days he had to himself cooking, cleaning up the apartment, and decorating for Christmas, so by the time Yangyang was out of school for the holidays, fairy lights were up all over the apartment, and their little Christmas tree was standing proudly in the corner of the living room, glowing with lights and tinsel and a combination of handmade and store-bought ornaments. There were the old toy cars that Ten had repurposed into ornaments hanging from the pine needles, the hand-painted ones they’d done together one year, the very special crystal ones that glittered like jewels that were a gift from Ten’s family in Thailand -- those ones hung closer to the top of the tree.

On the refrigerator, Baba would always put up a Christmas countdown calendar that Yangyang would diligently check off daily during breakfast. As the number of days narrowed, Yangyang’s excitement grew.

Ten usually had to work longer days this time of year, which still didn’t make a lot of sense to Yangyang. Weren’t the holidays supposed to be when you didn’t have to work as much? But Ten worked more, and he came home tired but happy, and they’d cuddle up on the living room couch and watch Christmas movies and shows together under the glow of the fairy lights until Ten or Yangyang fell asleep. 

Somehow, Yangyang always woke up in his bed in the morning. 

Yangyang really liked this time of year, even though it was cold out and his nose was constantly runny. He liked hanging out with Baba in the mornings, walking around the park, going shopping with him at the pop-up holiday villages around the city, going to museums. It felt special. 

This year, it felt _especially_ special.

“Get Ten Ge something like that,” Yangyang said, pointing at the gleaming silver ring under a glass case at the small booth they had stopped in front of. It was silver band with a cat silhouette in the center. Yangyang knew Ten Ge liked cats. 

Baba leaned forward to inspect it and pursed his lips in thought. His ears stuck out under the beanie he’d stuffed over his head, and his breath misted in front of him. Yangyang’s mittened hand was warm in Baba’s gloved one. “I don’t know,” Baba said slowly. “I was thinking of something...shinier.”

“Like a diamond?” Yangyang guessed.

The booth’s owner was wearing a pretty smile as he approached them. “Hello, you two,” he said pleasantly, like he must have over a thousand times today already. He winked at Yangyang, so Yangyang waved at him, grinning shyly. “Looking for anything today?”

“Just looking,” Baba said automatically.

“Baba!” Yangyang whispered. “Tell him.”

“It’s fine, Yangyang.”

“Maybe he can help,” Yangyang urged.

“Help with what?” the owner inquired.

“Baba wants to get married,” Yangyang said, swinging their connected hands back and forth. “But he needs a ring first.”

“Oh?” The owner’s eyes lit up. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“Not a lady,” Baba said with a stiff smile. “My boyfriend of...six years now.”

“Six years, wow. I’m sorry I assumed. He must be really special.”

“He is,” Baba said. His voice was getting all sappy, and Yangyang shook his hand to get him to snap out of it. When Baba got sappy like that, thinking about Ten, he was pretty much useless.

“He likes cats,” Yangyang told the owner.

“The one you’re looking at is really nice,” the owner said, “but you know, I can do something custom for you, if you’d like.”

Yangyang squinted at the word ‘custom’. It sounded like customer, but he couldn’t quite get at the meaning. “What’s ‘custom’?” he whispered to Baba.

“There are multiple meanings, but in this case, it means he can make one according to my wishes.”

Yangyang’s eyes widened. “So that means he can put more cats on the ring?”

Baba laughed softly and rested his hand over the top of Yangyang’s covered head. “Cute. You know what? I’ll think about it. Do you have a card?”

“Sure do.”

The owner gave Baba a card, which Baba put into his pocket before he steered Yangyang over to another booth that was selling hot chocolate.

“Why didn’t you want to get Ten Ge that ring?” Yangyang asked as they waited in line for the cocoa.

“It didn’t sing to me,” Baba said.

“I don’t think Ten Ge would like a singing ring,” Yangyang said seriously.

“It’s an expression!” Baba explained, laughing again. “It just didn’t feel right. It has to feel right.”

“Did it feel right with Mama?”

Yangyang held his breath as the question slipped out of his mouth. He hadn’t meant to ask it, and he could tell by the slack shock of Baba’s face that he hadn’t expected to receive it. But Baba just held him a little closer to his hip and said, “Of course it did. I loved your mother very much. Very, very much.”

“And you love Ten Ge, too,” Yangyang whispered. “The same way?”

“A different way,” Baba said. “The love I felt for Mama was very special. Just like the love I feel for Ten is special. Just like the love I feel for you. It’s all love, baby.”

“I love you, Baba,” Yangyang said. He squeezed his arms around Baba’s waist as hard as he could and Baba wheezed above him.

“I love you too, Xiao Yang.”

The hot chocolate was perfectly rich and sweet, as filling as a meal, and Yangyang fell asleep on Baba’s arm on the train ride back to their stop.

.

Yangyang was getting worried -- the number of days until Christmas were growing smaller and smaller, which meant his father’s birthday was quickly approaching, and Ten hadn’t mentioned anything about the ring he wanted to surprise Baba with. Maybe he’d forgotten about it? Yangyang certainly had done that before -- kept something so secret that it had left his mind completely. 

Almost every day, while Ten was at work and Yangyang and Baba were exploring the city and running out of things to do, Baba talked about the ring, or about asking Ten to marry him with the ring. Yangyang had learned that the asking part was called a “proposal” and that after that, if Ten said yes, they’d be “engaged”. He'd already seen this in a couple of movies but it was still nice to feel like he _really_ understood what those words meant now. And then after the engagement, they probably wouldn’t have the party that Uncle Sicheng and Uncle Yuta had -- the “reception”, Yangyang learned -- for at least a couple of months. Getting married sure had a lot of steps and took a lot of time. And Baba was still stuck on the first step!

“How will I ask him?” Baba moaned as he inched along on his skates beside Yangyang, who was gliding much more effortlessly back and forth across the rough ice. They were in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, because Baba said all the skating rinks in Manhattan would be too crowded and that Brooklyn would be less so. He wasn’t entirely correct, but at least Yangyang could skate pretty comfortably in a three foot diameter without running into someone.

“Over dinner?” Yangyang suggested. “His favorite -- the khao soi?”

“It’s too plain,” Baba complained. “We’ve already talked about that idea. Keep ‘em coming.”

Yangyang puffed out his cheeks and thought about what he knew about Ten Ge, which was a lot. But Yangyang was also just a little kid who had never been in love before, and he pointed this out to his father. “Go ask your grown-up friends!” he said.

Baba laughed and almost fell over onto his butt, but managed to right himself by waving his arms in huge, wild circles and going, “Woah, woah, woah!” 

Yangyang sighed and shook his head.

“You’re right. I should ask my grown-up friends. But you’ve got such great ideas, and you know Ten almost as well as I do.”

“You could ask Uncle Sicheng,” Yangyang said. “He always comes to the show.”

The show was the friends-only Open Mic that Ten threw in his cafe every year before Christmas. It brought together almost all of Baba’s and Ten’s friends -- even Uncle Dejun and Hendery came back for it, and they lived in Jersey! Yangyang squared his shoulders as a moment of brilliance shone through him. “You should ask him at the show! In front of everyone!”

Baba hesitated. “I don’t know…”

“You can sing a song together,” Yangyang said, his words gaining traction and speed as the idea solidified in his brain. “He’d really love that, I think. Singing with you! Something you wrote for him, or something? And you can surprise him at the end. And it’s only us, Baba. Only us in the cafe, anyway. So he won’t be in front of strangers.” Yangyang beamed up at his father, stunned by his own genius. “Isn’t it perfect?”

He could tell that Baba was thinking it over by the way his eyebrows scrunched and his eyes glazed over. The idea took root in Baba’s mind as well, and it made his face light up slowly, reminding Yangyang of some summer mornings when Ten would wake Yangyang up early so they could watch the sunrise together. “But it’s so soon,” Baba finally said softly, but he was smiling. “It _is_ perfect. I don’t think I could wait a day longer.” He held his hand out for Yangyang to take. “Now, take me off the ice. I’ve got a song to write.”

.

Now that Baba had a plan and had put it into action -- he and Ten had started practicing in the living room or their bedroom together, and Yangyang often went to bed to the lullaby of guitar chords and soft harmonies -- Yangyang decided to turn his attention to Ten. Christmas was in seven days, which meant Open Mic was in five, which meant Yangyang had to make sure Ten could still surprise his dad with a ring like he intended.

Baba had already convinced Ten to perform at the Open Mic with him on stage, so all Yangyang had to do was make sure Ten would still surprise Baba with the ring also, all while keeping it a secret that they _both_ had rings for each other.

Easy, right? Except Yangyang just wasn’t sure if Ten had the ring yet. Today, though, he was asking him about it, because Baba was going out for breakfast with Uncle Xuxi and Auntie Yeri, and he and Ten Ge were going to hang out in the apartment.

Yangyang woke up with the energy of the sun in his bones. He bolted out of bed and rushed into the kitchen, where he expected to see Ten Ge leaning with his hip propped against the counter, drinking black coffee out of a mug, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. But the kitchen was empty. Yangyang looked at the clock on the microwave. 10:24 AM.

It was late. 

And it was quiet.

He tiptoed over to Baba’s bedroom and knocked on the door before opening it, peeking his head inside. The curtains were drawn and the room was gray, and Ten Ge was still under the covers, his back to the door.

“Ten Ge?” Yangyang whispered.

The sheets rustled as Ten turned to face him. He smiled at Yangyang in reassurance, just a tiny lift to the corners of his mouth. “Hi,” he said quietly.

“Are you still sleeping?” Yangyang asked.

“No,” Ten said. “I’ll get up soon.” 

But he made no move to rise, and Yangyang opened the door wider to step inside. “Can I come up to the bed?”

Ten blinked unevenly before scooting back on the bed to make room for Yangyang’s smaller, squirmy body. Yangyang climbed up onto the mattress and burrowed under the covers with Ten, pressing in close and hugging Ten around his neck. He felt Ten gasp and shake before the tension drained from his body and he sank into the soft sheets. “I’ll make breakfast,” Ten whispered into Yangyang’s hair. 

“If you’re sad right now,” Yangyang said, “I can make breakfast instead. I can make cereal. I know how.”

“You don’t have to make cereal,” Ten said. “I’m getting up.” But again he didn’t move, and Yangyang saw how his eyes were misted over like the surface of a lake.

“Why did Baba leave? Didn’t you ask him to stay?”

“No, I told him to go.”

“Why?”

“Because I love him,” Ten said. “Because I know he’ll be back. I’ll be okay. It’s just a momentary thing, Xiao Yang. A momentary sadness. It stayed a little longer than I thought it would, but it’s already leaving. See?” Ten smiled again, bopping Yangyang on the tip of nose with a finger and chuckling when Yangyang sneezed in response.

Yangyang wrinkled his nose and pouted, even though his heart felt lighter at Ten’s sleepy antics. He pulled at Ten’s arm until he could hold Ten’s wrist with both hands in front of him and gently pushed back the sleeves, revealing one of Yangyang’s favorite tattoos on Ten’s skin -- the little jar of hearts in the center of his wrist, nestled in a bouquet of blossoms. He poked each of the three hearts and Ten’s smile grew wider. “Me, you, and Baba,” Yangyang said, poking the hearts again. “Ten Ge, do you still want to give Baba a ring?”

“I do,” Ten whispered. “Very much.”

“Are you gonna do it soon?” Yangyang asked.

Ten’s smile turned sly and knowing. “I think so. Why? Do you want to help me?”

Yangyang shrugged his shoulders the best he could while laying horizontal in bed. “I dunno. But I just think you should do it soon, before you forget.”

“I won’t forget,” Ten said, eyes glittering. “Do you want to see the ring?”

“Yeah!” Yangyang shouted in excitement, startling Ten with the volume of his voice. He clenched his teeth sheepishly in apology. “Sorry,” he continued at a lower volume. “I wanna see it.”

“Let me get it,” Ten said. He pressed his lips together when he moved to keep from groaning, but Yangyang could tell that Ten was hurting. The color was draining from his face. Still, Ten rose and slowly swung his legs to the floor on the other side of the bed, taking a breath before standing stiffly. “I’m okay, baby,” Ten said when he noticed Yangyang staring with poorly concealed worry. “Just warming up.”

It was really, really cold outside today, Yangyang thought. Sometimes the cold made it hard for Ten’s muscles to loosen up. Yangyang nodded and clambered off the bed quickly, going to the door to hold it open for him as Ten slipped into a fluffy robe over his pajamas.

“I picked it up the other day,” Ten said. “I think it’s lovely, but you’ll have to tell me what you think, too.”

Yangyang nodded and waited for Ten to shuffle past him at the door. “Is it custom?” Yangyang asked, using the new word he learned from Baba the other day.

Ten said, “It is. I worked really hard on the design…” He padded over to the corner of the living room where he kept his growing collection of art supplies and materials on a shelf in their bookcase. Boxes of loose charcoal, sketchbook pads, pens and markers and pencils. He rifled through the materials while Yangyang waited at his hip, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Ah, where is it?” Ten grumbled to himself. He pushed the boxes of charcoal around, kicking up black dust, before clicking his tongue in happiness when he found what they were looking for. Carefully, he drew out a little black velvet box that fit in the palm of his hand.

Yangyang held his breath as he held the box out under Yangyang’s chin. Ten snapped it open on its golden hinges, revealing a thick, golden ring sitting in purple satin. In the center of the ring sat a geometrically cut stone, as black as charcoal but carrying within it the radiance of a star. It was different and sleek and Yangyang knew that Baba would love it. He reached out his pointer finger to touch it and gasped in delight when he found it ice-cold. “It’s so cool,” Yangyang said to Ten. “Can I try it on?”

“Sure, baby,” Ten said. “Just be careful with it.”

Yangyang was so, so careful with it. The band was much too big for any one of his fingers, the stone nearly as big as his knuckle. He admired how it looked on his hand before putting it back in the box safely. “Baba will love it.”

“Don’t tell him it’s here, okay?” Ten asked, winking at him as he put the box back behind the charcoal and pencils. “This is the only spot in the apartment Baba never touches.”

“I promise I won’t. When will you give it to him?”

“Soon,” Ten said.

“How soon?”

Ten laughed softly and ruffled Yangyang’s already messy hair with his hand. “Eager?”

“I just think -- like -- maybe you can surprise him with it at the party? Baba definitely won’t expect it. Because you’re singing the song together in front of everyone.”

“The song…” Ten tapped his chin in thought. Because he’d just been rifling through loose charcoal, the tips of his fingers left dark spots on his chin. “Hmm…” He turned away from Yangyang and headed slowly into the kitchen, each step more sure than the last. “C’mon. I’ll make us pancakes.”

“Ge,” Yangyang whined. “What are you thinking about? About the song?”

“I’m thinking about how your Baba loves to show off his love like that. He’s got something planned, hasn’t he?”

“No…?” Yangyang squeaked, trailing behind Ten.

"You know, baby, your Baba asked me to be his boyfriend after one of the Open Mics? He was going to ask me in front of everyone, but he heard me when I said I don't like big surprises..."

"But you'd like this one, right?" Yangyang asked worriedly. "Because it's just friends. Just everyone we love."

Ten took the flour down from the cabinet with a tiny grunt. Then the sugar and the container of baking soda. He asked Yangyang to take the eggs out of the fridge for him, and together they prepared the ingredients to make fluffy pancakes from scratch.

"I'd love this surprise," Ten said as he cracked eggs into a glass bowl. "If, in fact, there is one," he added in a sneaky whisper. "You said you don't know anything, right?"

Yangyang nodded with eyes as wide as saucers, feeling like Ten has caught him in a game of hide and seek. 

Ten started whisking the wet ingredients together in the bowl, his movement practiced and steady. He said, "I want to do this for your Baba, Xiao Yang. He's done so much for me. I want to do this for him."

"Do what?" Yangyang asked. "Make him pancakes?"

Ten's shoulders shook when he laughed. "Pancakes, and then some," Ten said, not sharing anything more and leaving Yangyang confused but hopeful. That was the difference between Ten and Baba -- when it came to the other, Baba got dumber but Ten somehow got smarter, speaking in riddles. Yangyang wondered if that was a normal thing between two people who loved each other, but he shoved this and his other concerns to the back of his mind when the pancakes were finished cooking; Ten had drawn a smiley face in chocolate chips in Yangyang's stack.

.

There were two days left until the Open Mic. When Yangyang, Baba, and Ten went to the cafe to see how the cafe was holding up before the movie they were going to watch together, they found the little corner cafe was so crowded that the line looped around the inside once before trailing out the door.

“Owner’s rights,” Ten winked at Baba and Yangyang as he slipped inside, beckoning them to follow him to the counter, where he ducked under, waved hello to Mark and the others who were working there, and picked up their drinks that had been pre-made for them in the back. He also came out with a giant double fudge cookie.

“It’s so busy!” Yangyang remarked, taking the cookie with both hands. This made it difficult to take the hot chocolate that Ten was waving in front of his face. Baba ended up taking both Yangyang’s drink and his own, while Ten sipped at his drink with amusement glittering in his eyes.

“It’s alright,” Ten shrugged. “Business is good.”

“The line is wrapped _around_ the cafe,” Baba said.

“Nowhere to use the bathroom in the park,” Ten said, smiling. Baba and Ten traded a laugh like their eyes were telling secrets to each other, and Yangyang jumped up and down in front of them, wanting to be a part of it. “It’s just the holidays,” Ten added. “Lots of tourists.”

Even though the line was long, the tables weren’t full, as most people came in to get their coffees and left as soon as they had them in their hands, and the trio were able to find seats at a table in the corner. Yangyang sat breathing condensation onto the window and drawing patterns in the fog, watching the shapes fade, as Baba and Ten spoke in quiet murmurs to each other and held hands over the table’s surface. 

As the hour neared the middle of the afternoon, the crowd thinned and Mark finally came over to them to greet them.

“How’s my favorite kid!” Mark held his arms open for Yangyang to barrel into. “Bigger, definitely.”

“I’ll be taller than you soon!” Yangyang crowed.

“Doubtful.”

Mark dragged a chair over and sat on it backwards, arms crossed over the back of the chair, and Yangyang’s jaw dropped in awe. He wanted to sit like that. 

“How’s it going, boss?”

“How’s it going for _you_?” Ten returned, nodding his head at the two staff who were cleaning up behind the counter. Yangyang didn’t recognize them, which meant they were new. 

“Oh, they’re doing great. Picking it up real fast. It’s still weird being a manager, though. Like who gave me the authority?”

“I gave you the authority,” Ten reminded him. And then Yangyang stopped listening because they started talking about boring adult stuff like how big they should be grinding the beans, how the revenue was looking, if Mark had any ideas for different drink promotions. 

Instead, Yangyang thought about the Open Mic night. Last year, he remembered how Uncle Sicheng had gotten drunk and danced an old Chinese traditional dance for them, and then when he’d tried to take off his sweater, Uncle Yuta had almost tackled him off the stage. They went home shortly after. Yangyang still laughed about that night, because he almost never saw Uncle Sicheng like that — usually Uncle Sicheng was very calm and quiet and just a little bit stern. Yangyang liked that the holidays could bring out different things in different people. He wondered how everyone would react when this time, Baba asked Ten to marry him.

He still wasn’t sure about the details of Ten’s plan to give Baba the ring, because he was being extra secretive about it. He could only hope that Ten’s plan wouldn’t mess up Baba’s plan, unless a miracle dropped into his lap that let him see into Ten's mind.

"I'm bored," Yangyang interjected whatever the adults were talking about abruptly, yawning. "Can we go yet?"

"We'll get going soon, baby," Ten said. "I just need your Baba's help with something in the back before we go. Can you stay with Mark?"

"Uh huh," Yangyang nodded.

As soon as Baba and Ten disappeared into the back of the cafe, Yangyang realized his opportunity with Mark, in the front. 

"Mark."

"Yangyang," Mark said, raising his eyebrows. "What's up, little man?"

Yangyang gestured for Mark to lean in closer to him, and he did. "Did you know that Baba wants to marry Ten Ge?"

Mark's eyebrows went up even farther in his forehead, almost disappearing into his hair. "Oh, really?" he asked in a high, strange voice. 

Yangyang nodded seriously. "And that Ten Ge wants to marry Baba?"

“You don't say?"

"It's a secret," Yangyang whispered. "I only told my friends Jisung and Renjun. And Ms. Novak. And Nai Nai. But it's still a secret."

"Oh, I'm great at keeping secrets," Mark said. "But why are you telling me?"

"Because I need your help," Yangyang said plainly. 

A giggle erupted from Mark's throat but he coughed over it and hunched down lower until he was eye level with Yangyang and schooled his face into a serious expression. "With what?"

This was why Mark was cool. He was always willing to help Yangyang with whatever he asked; when he used to babysit Yangyang, sometimes he'd even let Yangyang stay up past his bedtime so they could play video games together. 

"Baba wants to propose to Ten Ge," Yangyang explained. Mark nodded to show that he was following. "But we have to make sure Ten Ge proposes to Baba at the same time."

Only one of Mark's eyebrows went up this time. "Why the same time?" He tilted his head in confusion, and Yangyang sighed in exasperation. 

"Because that's how a proposal works," Yangyang said. "In movies and stuff, the boy always asks the girl. So since Baba and Ten Ge are both boys, they have to ask each other, right?"

Mark's mouth was open in a small 'o'. For a moment, he said nothing, stunned by how Yangyang had it all figured out, no doubt. Then, he said, "You're totally onto something, little man."

Yangyang felt a weight he didn't realize he was carrying lift from his shoulders. His excitement was like a bubble inside of him about to burst. "I just think it'll be so perfect if they ask at the same time, because then Baba doesn't have to wait for Ten Ge, and Ten Ge doesn't have to wait for Baba. And they both wanna do it -- they told me! So you'll help me?"

"Whatever you need."

"Just make sure Ten Ge asks Baba at the Open Mic," Yangyang reiterated. "I'll take care of Baba. You take care of Ten Ge."

Mark nodded. "You got it. Mission accepted." He held out his fist for Yangyang to bump, and Yangyang bumped it, solidifying their pact in brotherhood.

.

By the time Yangyang, Baba, and Ten got to the cafe for the Open Mic, almost everyone else was already there — Uncle Sicheng and Uncle Yuta were behind the counter, pouring glasses of wine; Uncle Dejun and Uncle Hendery were testing the mic on the stage area that was set up near the front, a lavishly decorated Christmas tree in the corner and lights strung up around the stage; Uncle Xuxi and Auntie Yeri were talking to Uncle Doyoung and Uncle Taeyong, and between their legs their daughters were playing tag. Ming was only three years old and had Uncle Xuxi’s big eyes, and Hyeri, Uncle Doyoung and Uncle Taeyong’s little girl, was only four. There were some people Yangyang didn’t recognize as much, and these he assumed were friends of friends, or people Ten Ge and Baba worked with.

Yangyang almost immediately let go of Baba’s hand when they were inside, the warmth and joy already saturating the cafe washing over him, to look for Jisung and Renjun, whose families were invited this year. Before he found them, though, he came across Mark, who was setting up trays of hot food on the counter. Donghyuck was with him. Mark always called Donghyuck his “very good friend” but Yangyang thought they were actually boyfriends. He didn’t really understand why Mark wouldn’t just ask Donghyuck to be his boyfriend, because it was really obvious he liked Hyuck and Hyuck liked him, but whenever Yangyang asked Mark about it, Mark would go red and start sputtering and saying things like, “When you’re older you’ll understand.”

“Mark Ge!” Yangyang called out when he saw him. He ran over to him and threw his arms around his waist.

“Yangyang! Hey! Woah, careful, these are hot.”

“Did you make sure our mission is gonna work?” Yangyang asked.

“What mission?” Donghyuck asked loudly. He was wearing a puffy green sweater with a reindeer plastered across the front, and the reindeer’s red nose was blinking. Mark was wearing the same sweater, only it was red. 

“Shhh!” Yangyang hissed at him. “A secret mission!”

“Oh, you mean Mission: Proposal?”

“Mark, you told him?!”

Mark put both of his hands up in surrender. “I had to — he’s, uh, helping me with the tech set up this year.” He looked at Donghyuck and Donghyuck nodded seriously. “We’re all good to go, Yangyang. Don’t worry, little man.”

Donghyuck added, “Just make sure Kun doesn’t choke.”

“Baba won’t choke!” Yangyang protested, scandalized at the very thought. 

He ran off to look for Jisung and Renjun again and found them both by the display of cookies in the back. Each platter of cookies was brought in by someone and randomly assigned a number, and the people at the party could vote for their favorite cookie by putting in their vote in the Christmas Cookie Jar in the center of the table. Winner got to take home the cookie jar and bragging rights. Jisung and Renjun were in the middle of debating which of two cookies they liked more between them.

“The mint chocolate fudge is better!” Renjun was saying, waving said cookie around.

“No, the cranberry white chocolate is better!” Jisung returned.

“Hey, guys!”

“Yangyang! Which do you like more?” Both Renjun and Jisung shoved their cookies in Yangyang’s face. He took a bite of the chocolate one and then a bite of the cranberry one, and thought neither of them could really compare to the cookies he and Baba would make on lazy Saturday morning together. 

“Um,” he said anyway. “Chocolate fudge because chocolate, duh. Sorry Jisung.”

Jisung pouted but just ate the rest of his cookie in two huge bites, licking his fingers after polishing it off. “Whatever.”

“Baba is gonna ask tonight,” Yangyang announced gleefully, in case they forgot. They hadn’t forgotten. Renjun immediately clapped his hands together and Jisung threw his little arms around Yangyang in a crushing hug. 

“Then Ten Ge will be your other daddy!” Jisung said.

Yangyang nodded into Jisung’s neck. That was what he was most excited about. Of course, Ten Ge was already like a daddy to Yangyang, but he wanted everyone in the whole world to know that Ten was his Papa. He wanted it to be official.

Ten Ge came over in that moment, holding a plate of food for Yangyang. “Baby, c’mere,” Ten said, waving his hand in Yangyang’s direction. “I got you the bulgogi from Uncle Taeyong that you like before it could disappear.” Yangyang’s eyes lit up as he took in the tasty portions covering his plate. The bulgogi glistened under the twinkling fairy lights, and the japchae smelled so fragrant that drool dripped out of the corner of Yangyang’s mouth. Completing the plate was a scoop of Ten Ge’s green curry and some jasmine rice.

“Thanks, Ge!” Yangyang said, taking it from him. He couldn’t wait for the day where he’d be able to call him Papa.

.

Late in the evening, after everyone had arrived, Mark called the crowd in the cafe to order: the show was about to start! It was time for everyone to grab their seats.

Yangyang sprinted over to Jisung and Renjun, but couldn’t decide if he wanted to sit with them or with Baba and Ten. In the end, he found Baba and Ten sitting in a dark corner away from the rest of the crowd, and based on how pink Baba’s cheeks were, he’d had a couple of glasses of wine already. Ten was just as loosey-goosey, holding out his arms dramatically for Yangyang to clamber up onto his lap when he saw him. 

“Are you ready, baby?” Ten asked. All that Yangyang could see in Ten’s eyes was excitement. He nodded and turned to Baba, frowning when he saw Baba sitting with his head drooped between his shoulders and his gaze low.

“I’m really nervous,” Baba admitted when Ten reached out a hand to scratch behind Baba’s shoulders. 

“Don’t be. We practiced together. And if we stumble over anything, it’s just us, anyway,” Ten murmured. Baba looked at him then, from under his eyelashes, his eyes big and round and his cheeks rosy. He looked like he’d seen a star for the very first time. “Love you,” Ten said, kissing Baba on the cheek.

Baba turned into the kiss. “I love you so much,” he said.

“And me!” Yangyang said, bouncing on Ten’s lap.

“Of course, silly goose.” Ten gave him a kiss on the cheek also, a wet one that made Yangyang stick out his tongue in feigned disgust.

They quieted when Mark took the stage. For the past few years, Mark has been the MC for this night, taking the position over naturally. It helped that when he opened, he usually performed a holiday-inspired rap to get the mood up and festive before handing the stage over to the next performer. This year, Yangyang watched Donghyuck watch from the sidelines, noticing how his eyes crinkled up when he laughed at a particularly witty verse.

Next up were Uncle Sicheng and Uncle Yuta, who performed a dance together to Jingle Bell Rock. After that, Uncle Doyoung took to the keyboard on stage and sang a mellow, hopeful cover of a Michael Buble song (Yangyang only knew about Michael Buble because Baba always played his Christmas album nonstop in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and for some weeks after, too. Then Taeyong and Hyeri performed something called “Spoken Word” which Yangyang thought was really cool and different. Ming sang Jingle Bell to Uncle Xuxi’s clumpy piano-playing. Eventually, Yangyang lost track of who had performed and who hadn’t, and just enjoyed himself. Next year, maybe he’d do something with Jisung and Renjun!

He felt Ten Ge shift under him and whined before he realized he was moving because he needed to head up to the stage. “We’re up,” Ten Ge whispered to Yangyang. He winked. Yangyang’s heart did a little somersault in his chest, because when Ten winked like that, it meant he was definitely up to something. Mark pulled through, after all!

Baba rubbed Yangyang’s head for good luck, and took a deep, steadying breath before heading up to the stage with Ten.

Here it was. It was happening.

The set up was simple, just Baba and his guitar on a stool, and Ten Ge on another stool opposite, a tambourine in his hand. 

“We wanted to prepare something together,” Baba spoke into the mic in a low, smooth voice. “And share it with everyone we love.”

“We hope your holidays are full of love and joy, and that you know that you can always stop by the cafe for a little cheer. Happy holidays, all.” Ten Ge pulled back, whispering something to Baba, who was still looking at him like Ten was his favorite star. “One, two, one-two-three-four—”

The song was a simple one, and charming in its simplicity. Baba sang a verse in Mandarin, and Ten Ge sang a verse in Thai, and they sang the chorus together in English. It was clear that it was a love song, and that Baba and Ten Ge really meant the words they were sharing with each other. Yangyang got so lost in the song that he almost forgot about the plan.

When it was over, their friends and family were quiet. Yangyang held his breath also, as Ten Ge and Baba stared at each other on stage like they were the only two people in the whole universe. 

Then Baba got up to put his guitar down to the side, turning his back to the audience for just a moment. Ten Ge got down on one knee.

The silence that followed was full of emotion. No one spoke. The lights above the stage twinkled. Ten Ge cleared his throat and held out his hands. In his palm was a little black velvet box, and when Baba turned around and saw it, Ten popped the box open and Baba started to cry.

“Ten,” Baba said, his hands covering his eyes, his huge smile, “you — oh, god.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Ten said in a whisper. “I knew the only way to do that would be to preempt _your_ surprise.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Ten said. “I love you, too. I — wait, my knee is killing me.” Ten rose, and someone in the crowd giggled as Ten’s face took on the shade of red rose petals. “Qian Kun,” Ten started, his eyes wet. “It’s been six amazing, incredible years. We have grown so much together. You’ve helped me grow so much. I knew I wanted to ask you to marry me after you walked me to Taeil’s. Well, that’s when the feeling started. I was scared, but you made it feel so safe to love you. As we came together more and more, I kept thinking, I'll ask you tomorrow. And tomorrow came and I loved you even more. So I kept thinking, tomorrow, tomorrow. And I kept loving you more and more. I thought maybe there'd be a day I realized, “I love you this much, and this is the most I'll ever love anyone,” and I would ask you then, but then I realized something else: that I love you infinitely. That like infinity, every passing day with you is greater than the last. So there can’t be a perfect day to ask you to marry me because each day, each moment, is perfect. So why not now? So, Kun, Qian Kun, I—”

“Yes,” Baba shouted. “Yes, oh my god, yes!” He closed the distance between them and held Ten’s face between his hands and kissed him fully on the lips, and their friends went wild with applause. 

“I practiced that so many times,” Ten muttered shakily, the mic still picking up his voice.

“It was perfect, you’re perfect. Get that ring on me,” Baba said. They kissed again and again as party streamers fell from the ceiling. Yangyang looked over at Mark and Donghyuck, and they both gave him a thumbs up. He dashed up to the front to be with his Baba and Ten while Baba was slipping the ring he’d gotten for Ten onto his finger.

“Delicate but strong,” Baba murmured. “I thought of you when I saw it.” It was a crown of vines in rose gold, tiny diamonds glittering throughout. 

“I love it,” Ten said again. “I love you.” 

Yangyang finally reached them and tugged on both of their sleeves to get their attention. Both turned their watery gazes in Yangyang’s direction. “Did you ask each other? You have to ask each other to make it count.” 

Baba raised an eyebrow and hauled Yangyang into his arms. “Have you been scheming?” 

“No,” Yangyang answered, not really knowing what the word meant. “So did you?”

“We did,” Ten said. “We said yes.”

“I want Ten Ge to be my Papa,” Yangyang said.

Ten’s eyes went dark as tears streamed from them. “You do?”

“You complete us,” Yangyang said. Baba transferred him over to Ten’s arms, and Ten cried into Yangyang’s cheek as he held him.

“You complete me,” Ten whispered. “We’re all together now.”

“Promise?” Yangyang asked, holding out his pinky to seal the deal. 

Ten locked pinkies with his and stamped it. “Promise.”

.

Christmas was today, and normally Yangyang would be up shredding the wrapping paper from the presents under their little tree right when the sun rose, but this Christmas Yangyang woke up in between Baba and Ten Papa, and thought that he couldn’t ask for a more perfect present.

.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! comments and kudos appreciated! 
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/andnowforyaya) | [my cc](http://curiouscat.me/andnowforyaya)


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